All The Best

We are hours away from departing India. A common goodbye wish here is, "all the best," so, while there are plenty of blog entries left to post — many more photos to put up — we thought it would be appropriate to write one last entry while sitting here in India, to wish, "all our best," to those we're leaving behind.

The Taj Mahal

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This was our last time traveling in India (well, as far as we can tell). I guess we decided to save the best for last and see the Taj Mahal just a few weeks before we leave India. Maybe it's because we're cheap, or maybe it's because we must be somewhat masochistic, or maybe it's a little of both, but we decided to travel again by train. From Bombay to Delhi an express train is overnight and seventeen hours. I can't say it's the most comfortable I've ever been; I'll just leave it at that.

We spent the first day in Delhi and wandered around a few more sights that we had missed in previous visits. The next day, we took the 6am train south to Agra.

The Taj Mahal is actually in Agra, one of the many, many Indian capital cities. Agra is almost entirely supported by tourism, which usually makes for an easy time for tourists, but here it is just the opposite. A foreign traveler cannot walk two feet without being harassed or solicited for something; perhaps a ride in a rickshaw, a ride on a camel, a cold drink, a precious geode rock, a handcrafted miniature Taj snow globe, the ubiquitous, "come look at my shop." There are also a dozen scams that exist here so, as a traveler, you always feel on edge. I already know that we paid way too much for some ice creams that we got off a street cart, suckers.

Our first day in Agra we went to the Agra Fort and left in time for a sunset view of the backside of the Taj Mahal. The Taj backs up against the Yamuna River and on the other side of the river there is a viewing garden. We reached the garden and were stopped by guards who told us that we were not allowed to go beyond a certain point because VIPs were inside the Taj and photography was prohibited. The shots we did get were apart of what I called a "covert operation."

The next day we woke up early to visit the Taj at sunrise. For those who don't know, the Taj Mahal is actually a memorial tomb built by Emperor Shah Jahan for his second wife who died during childbirth. The contrast of serenity to what exists just outside the complex walls is unbelievable. It was truly an amazing sight to see.

Later in the day we took a car out to another former capital city (1500s), Fatehpur Sikri. We only spent a few hours here, but it was enough to completely drain us. That night we headed back to Delhi, and the next day back to Bombay. It was a whirlwind trip.

Holi 2008

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Last year we celebrated the Holi festival within our neighborhood, but this year we decided to go over to Bal Anand, an orphanage where Hannah has been volunteering (click here to read last year's post explaining the festival). It is crazy to think that for a few of these kids, this will be their last Holi experience; they will be adopted and brought up in a totally different country.

View last year's Holi photos

Urban Wildlife Sighting No. 3

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We were really wondering if we were going to be able to complete the Urban Wildlife Sighting series with a number three, but here it is… monkeys. Monkeys invaded the trees in front of our windows today. Crazy. We've seen monkeys on our travels around India before, but never on top of our roof.

View Urban Wildlife Sighting No. 1
View Urban Wildlife Sighting No. 2

McDonald's Made Our Day

A little over a year ago, we were asked by a McDonald's (Mumbai) employee to fill out a customer comment form. We have been asked so many times to fill these things out that we had little expectation that things would change. Despite this, we decided to comment on the fact that Chicken McNuggets were not on the menu. This seemed to us an obvious crossover menu item from the US since they don't allow any beef products. Why these things hadn't made it to the menu here is beyond us.

Finally, our foresight had paid off. We walked into a McDonnald's yesterday and sure enough, a bright new sign read: "Introducing Chicken McNuggets." The barbeque sauce leaves quite a bit to be desired, but hey, we now have an alternative to "Maharaja Macs"!

Hua Hin

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Our next stop in Thailand was the small beach town of Hua Hin. Besides the beach, the best part of this town was the night market. This was a street devoted to knock-off clothing stalls, kitschy craft stalls, and an assortment of food stalls. We spent every night wandering up and down the street, looking, smelling and tasting; the food was incredible — we felt a little like Anthony Bourdain.

Bangkok Part 1

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A few weeks ago Hannah and I took a trip to Thailand and Malaysia. It was an amazing trip. We started in Bangkok, traveled down to the beach town of Hua Hin, and went further down to the extremely beautiful Thai island of Koh Tao. We crossed the border into Malaysia and landed in Penang, then down to Kuala Lumpur for a few days, and then back to Bangkok.

Stepping off the plane from Mumbai, Bangkok felt like stepping into the future. The new airport in Bangkok was clean, super modern and — god bless them — totally efficient. We spent our first day wandering around the area surrounding our hostel and then attempted to find our way to Chinatown. We are still not entirely sure if we made it, but the buildings were definitely decorated with chinese writing and there were roast ducks hanging in windows — who knows. Bangkok had some really great public transportation and we utilized just about all of them. We took taxis, buses, rickshaws (tuk-tuk), boats, and even the two-level sky train.

Our second full day in Bangkok we spent going to the various religious sites. We went to the Wat Phra Kaew home of the Emerald Buddha; the entire complex was unbelievable. Before entering the complex we were stopped by the king of Thailand's motorcade leaving the Grand Palace. We walked to the Wat Pho where the Reclining Buddha was, and after some wandering around lost a bit we found the Solid Gold Buddha. That night we made our way to Siam Square which is basically Bangkok's shopping mall epicenter. There must be something like eight, hyper-modern malls in this little area of the city, it's crazy. Let's just say, we enjoyed the air conditioning, a few Starbucks drinks and beef (finally!)cheeseburgers. Later that night we walked around our hostel and snacked on, what we think was the best thing about our trip: the street food.